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Archival description
Fonds · 1911 - 1981

Records of the Canadan Suomalainen Järjestö [Finnish Organization of Canada], Vapaus Publishing Company (responsible for publishing Vapaus and Liekki and other publications), Suomalais-Canadalaisen Amatoori Urheiluliiton [Finnish-Canadian Amateur Sports Federation], co-operatives, and more.

Includes meeting minutes, reports, financial statements, and correspondence related to the operations and administration of these organizations. Also includes a variety of document and pamphlets related to socialism, communism, and the peace movement in Canada and worldwide.

The Canadan Suomalainen Järjestö (CSJ; Finnish Organization of Canada) is the oldest nationwide Finnish cultural organization in Canada. For over a century the CSJ has been one of the main organizations for Finnish immigrants in Canada with left-wing sympathies and, in particular, those with close ties to the Communist Party of Canada. Through the early to mid 1920s, Finnish-Canadians furnished over half the membership of the Communist Party and some, like A.T. Hill (born Armas Topias Mäkinen), became leading figures in the Party. Beyond support for leftist political causes, the cooperative and labour union movements, many local CSJ branches in both rural and urban centres established halls – some 70 of which were built over the years in communities across Canada – that hosted a range of social and cultural activities including dances, theatre, athletics, music, and lectures. The CSJ is also known for its publishing activities, notably the Vapaus (Liberty) newspaper.

The CSJ underwent several changes in its formative years related to both national and international developments. Founded in October 1911 as the Canadan Suomalainen Sosialisti Järjestö (CSSJ; Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada), the organization served as the Finnish-language affiliate of the Canadian Socialist Federation which soon after transformed into the Social Democratic Party of Canada (SDP). By 1914, the CSSJ had grown to 64 local branches and boasted a majority of the SDP membership with over 3,000 members. One year later the organization added two more local branches but membership had dropped to 1,867 members thanks, in part, to a more restrictive atmosphere due to Canada’s involvement in the First World War and an organizational split that saw the expulsion or resignation of supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World from the CSSJ.

In September 1918, the Canadian federal government passed Order-in-Council PC 2381 and PC 2384 which listed Finnish, along with Russian and Ukrainian, as ”enemy languages” and outlawed the CSSJ along with thirteen other organizations. The CSSJ successfully appealed the ban in December 1918 but dropped ”Socialist” from its name. The organization operated under the name Canadan Suomalainen Järjestö until December 1919. The SDP, however, did not recover from the outlawing of its foreign-language sections, leaving the CSJ without a political home. Stepping into this organizational vacuum was the One Big Union of Canada (OBU), founded in June 1919. The CSJ briefly threw its support behind this new labour union initiative, functioning as an independent ”propaganda organization of the OBU” until internal debates surrounding the structure of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union affiliate and the OBU decision not to join to the Moscow-headquartered Comintern led to its withdrawal shortly thereafter. In 1924, CSSJ activists including A.T. Hill helped to found the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada (LWIUC).

Inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution that toppled the Tsarist Russian Empire in November 1917, and following the founding of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) as an underground organization in May 1921, the CSSJ rapidly became an integral part of the nascent Communist movement in Canada. Reflecting this change, in 1922 the organization was renamed the Canadan Työläispuolueen Suomalainen Sosialistilärjestö (FS/WPC; Finnish Socialist Section of the Workers’ Party of Canada) – the Workers’ Party of Canada being the legal front organization of the CPC. In 1923, Finnish-Canadian Communists formed a separate cultural organization, the Canadan Suomalainen Järjestö (CSJ; Finnish Organization of Canada Inc.), to serve as a kind of ”holding company” ensuring that the organization’s considerable properties and assets would be safe from confiscation by the government or capture from rival left-wing groups. With the legalization of the CPC in 1924, the FS/WPC became the Canadan Kommunistipuolueen Suomalainen Järjestö (FS/CP; Finnish section of the Communist Party of Canada). Between 1922 and 1925, membership in the CSJ through its various transitions also doubled as membership in the Communist Party. This arrangement ended in 1925 when the FS/CP was disbanded following the ”bolshevization” directives of the Comintern. These directives demanded that separate ethnic organizations in North America be dissolved in favour of more disciplined and centralized party cells. It was hoped that this reorganization would help attract new members outside of the various Finnish, Ukrainian, and Jewish ethnic enclaves that had furnished the bulk of the CPC dues paying membership in Canada. From this point onwards, the CSJ officially functioned as a cultural organization but maintained a close, albeit sometimes strained, association with the CPC. The 1930s represent the peak of the CSJ size and influence, occuring during the Third Period and Popular Front eras of the international Communist movement. During this period CSJ union organizers assisted in the creation of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union – a unit of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of the American Federation of Labor, successor to the LWIUC – and the reemergence of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers in Sudbury and Kirkland Lake. CSJ activists also helped to recruit volunteers for the International Brigades that fought against nationalist and fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Finally, in the 1930s some 3,000 CSJ members or sympathizers embarked on the journey from Canada to the Soviet Union to help in the efforts to industrialize the Karelian Autonomous Soviet. Hundreds of Finns in Karelia would later perish in Stalin’s purges.

Despite the CSJ’s active support for the Canadian war effort, the organization was still deemed to be a threat to national security by the federal government and again outlawed in 1940. All FOC properties were seized and closed. The Suomalais Canadalaisten Demokraattien Liitto (SCDL; Finnish-Canadian Democratic League) served as the FOC’s main legal surrogate until the organization was legalized in 1943. The rapid decline of the FOC following this period is apparent from the fact that of the 75 locals in operation in 1936, only 36 remained active in 1950.

Further reading:
Edward W. Laine (edited by Auvo Kostianen), A Century of Strife: The Finnish Organization of Canada, 1901-2001 (Turku: Migration Institute of Finland), 2016.
Arja Pilli, The Finnish-Language Press in Canada, 1901-1939: A Study of Ethnic Journalism (Turku: Institute of Migration), 1982.
William Eklund, Builders of Canada: History of the Finnish Organization of Canada, 1911-1971 (Toronto: Finnish Organization of Canada), 1987.

Collection · 1857-2011

This collection consists of yearbooks; annual reports; newsletters, handbooks; prize lists; constitutions and by-laws; board of director information; lists of presidents; correspondence; a newspaper clipping; programmes; show announcements; booklets; emblems; publications; hand-written notes; a petition; rules and regulations; proceedings of an annual convention; show books; bulletins; pamphlets; articles; a presentation; and member lists.

CA ON00340 F1960 · Fonds · 1921-1979

Fonds consists of baptisms, 1921-1926, and burials, 1922-1926, of Hunta - Clute Pastoral Charge (includes Hunta - Clute Methodist Circuit, Hunta, Clute, Frederickhouse, Gardiner); records, including baptismal stubs, 1956-1961, and marriages, 1936 - 1979, of Clute - Island Falls Pastoral Charge (includes Hunta Methodist Circuit [includes Hunta, Clute], Clute, Island Falls, Dunning [now Brower Township], Hunta, Fraserdale, Otter Rapids, Smooth Rock Falls and Little Long Rapids Protestant Church), 1921-1961; board and committee minutes of Island Falls United Church, 1951-1957; records of Fraserdale United Church, 1952-1958; membership cards of Otter Rapids United Church, 1959-1960.

Clute - Island Falls Pastoral Charge (Ont.)
CA ON00402 ASJ · Collection · 1959, 1963

The collection contains a 1963 issue of the students’ journal Aurore and a photographic document autographed by Bishop Louis Levesque on October 22, 1959. The collection includes one box of textual and photographic documents.

Académie Saint-Joseph de Hearst
Collection Alain Bussières
CA ON00402 AB · Collection · 1953-2017

The collection contains textual records related to Northern Ontario railway networks, including an incomplete serie of schedules of the Canadian National (CN) passenger train, which ran through Northern Ontario between 1953 and 1989 and of VIA Rail’s schedule from 1987 to 1997. An incomplete collection of the magazine Branchline, student yearbooks from Iroquois Falls High School, newspaper clippings, a map and flyers about the tourist attractions of Northern Ontario are also part of the collection.

Bussières, Alain
CA ON00402 AÉ · Collection · 1957, 1959, 1961, 1966-1971, 1973, 1977-1979

The collection includes an incomplete series of student yearbooks, from the area’s high schools. In Hearst, student yearbooks from Académie St-Joseph and École Secondaire de Hearst High School are available. Yearbooks from Académie D’Youville and Cité des Jeunes of Kapuskasing are part of the collection, as well. It also includes some yearbooks published by Académie Don-Bosco, Collège Notre-Dame, Collège Sacré-Cœur, Roland Michener Secondary School, and École secondaire catholique Thériault in Timmins. Académie Don-Bosco, Académie St-Joseph, Académie D’Youville, Collège Notre-Dame and Collège Sacré-Cœur were among the private schools that closed after the Ontario government approved the establishment of French public secondary schools, in 1968.

Annuaires étudiants
Collection Boîte à Lettres
CA ON00402 CBL · Collection · 1987-2001

This collection includes newspaper clippings and a few documents relating to the activities of La Boîte à Lettres, between 1988 and 2001.

La Boîte à Lettres
CA ON00402 RB · Collection · 1961-1971

The collection consists of 11 volumes of the newsletter Bonjour published by the Hearst diocese, between January 1961 and November / December 1971.

Untitled
Collection Brisson/Girard
CA ON00402 BG · Collection · 1929, 1934, 1939, 1949

The collection contains textual records relating to Fryatt's school, including daily and general registers and a document presenting the equipment used in the school's operation, in 1929. The village of Fryatt was located between Mattice and Val Côté in the vicinity of what is today known as Fryatt Road. Since 1975, the former Fryatt site is part of the municipality of Mattice-Val Côté.

Brisson, Huguette
CA ON00402 CL · Collection · 1980-2006

The collection includes an incomplete serie of calendars published by Le Nord newspaper, the Hearst Recreation Center, Hearst Youth Services and the Hearst Ecomuseum.

Calendriers locaux
Collection Clément Groleau
CA ON00402 CG · Collection · 1951-1956, 1958-1960, 1968-1970.

The fonds contains the minutes of the RCSS No.1 Lowther school board in Coppell from 1951 to 1956 and from 1958 to 1960. It also includes the records of Le Club des Loisirs de Coppell, from 1968 to 1970.

Groleau, Clément
Collection Daily Press
CA ON00402 DP · Collection · 1972, 1989, 1999, 2002-2008, 2012

The collection contains mostly special issues, some relating to the 60th (1972) and 75th (1987) anniversaries of the City of Timmins, while others celebrate various special events. It includes the collections: Hardrock & Heartwood (1999) and Milestones (2012). Hardrock & Heartwood was a weekly document published in 1999 to mark the arrival of the twenty-first century while Milestones celebrated the first century of the City of Timmins.

Daily Press
Collection Doric Germain
CA ON00402 DG · Collection · n/a

All the books in this collection belonged to Professor Doric Germain and are annotated. Most of these publications were on the list of books studied in the literature courses offered by Doric Germain.

Germain, Doric
CA ON00402 ÉSHHS · Collection · 1969-1970, 1999-2001

The collection includes an incomplete series of the newspaper L'Écho des Jeunes (October 1999 to May 2001). A document listing the evening courses offered by Hearst High School in 1969-1970, is also part of the collection.

École Secondaire de Hearst High School
CA ON00402 ECT · Collection · 1898-1954

The collection contains digital photos dating from 1898 to 1954. Most of them show members of the Coulombe family when they were living in Hearst, including Eveline's parents as well as her siblings: André, Cécile, Georgette, Léo, Robert and Yvonne. In addition, there are some pictures of their neighbors and friends from Hearst, such as Claude Larose's family. Others illustrate students at école Sainte-Thérèse and a few buildings in Hearst, at that time. There are also textual documents that the donor has kept, as souvenirs from her childhood in Hearst. It includes an autograph album where we find the signature of several people living in Hearst in the early 1940s, as well as religious images and correspondence.

Coulombe-Touchette, Eveline
CA ON00402 RS · Collection · 1963, 1966, 1981, 1988, 1996, 2003

The collection includes textual, audiovisual and sound documents about the 1963 strike and the Reesor Siding shooting. Three of the series mainly contain reproductions of newspaper clippings as well as various textual documents. Documents pertaining to Paul Doucet’s play Le silence d’une tragédie can be found in one of the series. There also is a series containing the funeral cards of the three strikers who lost their lives during the shooting. The last series contains sound and audiovisual documents.

Événements Reesor Sding
Collection Hearst Tribune
CA ON00402 CHT · Collection · 1974-1979

The collection consists of The/La Hearst Tribune from 1974 to 1979.

Hearst Tribune
CA ON00402 HG · Collection · 1995-2017

This collection includes a complete series of HighGrader Magazine published between January 1995 to Winter 2017.

HighGrader Magazine
CA ON00402 JCP · Collection · 1934-1959

The collection contains photos illustrating the life of the Collin family from their arrival in the region until the 1960s. There are also photos of the Poliquin family and of l’école Sainte-Thérèse. Photographic documents highlighting the life and work of the nursing assistants and of the other members of the Notre-Dame Hospital’s staff, during the 1950s, are also part of the collection.

Poliquin, Jacqueline Collin